[crowd cheering] Mart is a Texas football town.
I don't know how they grow such good football players,
but all of these boys had won state championships
together at Mart High School.
[Triana] I watched Jacob and Sabion played against each other,
and that game was the best
because their bond was really close.
[Anthony] When I walked in,
I already knew they were gone.
He was gonna be the person in the family
that made it to the NFL.
These two murders changed the lives
of the people in the community forever.
People were saying like, "Wait till the truth comes out."
I questioned, like, "Was there any secret animosity?"
It was a mistake. We were all family.
[theme music playing]
[siren wailing]
[crowd cheering]
[police siren wailing]
[Detective Johnson] In the early morning hours of the 18th,
I got the phone call that
there'd been a double homicide in Mart.
-[dispatcher speaking indistinctly over radio] -[police siren wailing]
[Detective Johnson] It was a shocker because
I've been in the sheriff's office over 10 years,
and this is the first murder that's happened in Mart.
Especially a double murder.
[dispatcher speaking indistinctly over radio]
[Detective Johnson] It's kinda one of those once-in-a-generation crimes.
So, I show up to the crime scene.
[car door closes]
[Detective Johnson] The house is located
on the main thoroughfare through Mart.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
[Detective Johnson] Sabion was one of the victims.
He was found in the bed.
He was shot two times,
one in the right side of the face,
just below the eye, and one in the right neck.
The second victim was Jacob.
This was Jacob's house.
He was found on the floor,
and he was shot three times in the back.
So, because they're football players,
they're like rockstars.
Everybody knew who they were.
It felt like half the Mart was there at the crime scene.
Everybody's screaming.
They wanted something to be done right now.
And nothing can happen fast enough
to catch the shooter.
The population of Mart is probably around 1,700.
The community is very close. Everybody knows everybody.
Most of 'em are probably even kin to each other.
[Anthony] Mart, Texas is a good little town to raise a kid.
You don't have to worry about nothing too much.
And you do something wrong, the parents gonna know
before you even get home,
'cause somebody gonna tell 'em.
[Detective Johnson] Mart is a Texas football town.
You've seen movies where they show the town,
and everything's closed up.
Friday night, everybody's at the football games.
And that's Mart.
[crowd cheering loudly]
High school football, I think, is a great Texas phenomenon,
but it's an especially big deal in Mart.
I don't know how they grow such good football players,
but they have a pretty good track record of doing so.
They've had a lot of success in high school football.
The Mart High School Panthers,
that is, I think, the one thing that
the residents of Mart really rally around,
and it's a big, big deal in that community.
Being at a Mart game, it like being at a party.
[crowd cheering loudly]
You got the yelling, and the screaming,
and you got everybody running around,
and it just... It's fun.
[cheering continues]
[Anthony] Jacob was a standout player.
I can honestly say,
somebody tell us, I don't know where he got it from,
'cause he was just everywhere.
In senior year, he won most valuable player.
So, we have two small towns right beside each other.
Mart is the Mart Panthers
and Riesel is the Riesel Indians,
who are kind of a rival for years.
It's a big thing.
Jacob played for the Mart Panthers
and Sabion played for the Riesel Indians.
[crowd cheering]
Walking out at Riesel with Sabion,
it was pretty special
because he was gonna do something wild.
[crowd cheering loudly]
[Chris] He was gonna return a kickoff
and run down the sideline,
and everybody's gonna go crazy.
Or he would make a big play on defense.
He played free safety, so he was all over the field,
so he could make a play anywhere on the field and just
totally light up the stadium.
[crowd cheering loudly]
[Triana] I watched Jacob and Sabion played against each other,
and that game was the best game ever
because it was so close.
They liked to see who was better in what.
They liked to have competition.
But their bond was really close.
They were unseparable.
Like, everywhere they went, they were together.
If they even go to the store, they gotta go together.
You see one, you're gonna see the other one.
[Anthony chuckles] I call 'em twins from another mother.
'Cause they even look alike.
[Shontel] Jacob and Sabion knew each other as kids.
They were always laughing.
When they were together, they were always having a good time.
[laughs] 'Cause they were jokesters.
[haltingly] When they were killed...
[crying] I think the whole city was
taken by surprise
because everybody knew Jacob and Sabion.
[Triana] On April 17th, I had just got home,
and I remember I went into my room.
And then I end up going to sleep early.
And then around, like, 1:00 something...
[thud]
...I heard a thump, and I didn't pay it no mind 'cause
normally it's the boys playing around.
So, I went back to sleep.
I thought they was in there wrestlin'
'cause I heard the door slam.
I got up and checked on that.
I went through the living room and when I walked in,
I seen Jacob on the floor and Sabion sitting up in the bed.
I already knew they were gone.
[Triana] My momma ran into my room
and yelled, "Call 911! Call 911!"
And I was asking her, "For what?"
And she wouldn't tell me so I followed her into the room
before calling 911 to see what was going on.
And then I see her sitting on the ground,
holding my brother, crying.
And then I turn my head,
I see Sabion on the bed, just laying there.
And then, so I went outside,
I called 911.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
[Triana] The only thing I can remember saying was,
"My brother's been shot.
He's dead. Please come help."
And the hardest part in all that happened is seeing my wife
sitting on the floor, holding Jacob.
And I had to tell her, "Put him down,"
'cause she's contaminating the scene.
[police siren blaring]
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
The best that we can piece together
given the physical evidence
is that Sabion was probably shot first,
-given the fact that he hadn't moved. -[two gunshots ring]
[Detective Johnson] His feet were still crossed out of the cover,
so he was in a relaxed position.
And then they shot Jacob.
[three gunshots ring]
[Detective Johnson] Jacob was probably trying to escape.
He probably had just enough time to get up
and start moving toward the door.
[DA DeCluitt] There's nothing missing from the scene that
anyone that lived in that house could tell.
It wasn't ransacked like you would think in a burglary or a robbery.
Sabion was shot right in the middle of his forehead.
It was intentional. Same with Jacob.
It looked like an execution.
They were relaxed, so it indicates that
they probably were not alarmed by the shooter.
That to me shows that it was very personal.
[Triana] I didn't know who did it.
I just wanted to know why would this happen.
What was the reason?
I just wanted to find out who
and why would they do something like this.
[Anthony] Jacob and his friends,
they were hanging out at my house earlier that night.
Just playing the football games
and watching TV.
But I don't know what happened after that.
We need to know who was at the house earlier
when they were shot.
It was a shocker when we found out
the truth of what happened.
[Shontel] I'm laying in bed, just watching YouTube.
And I was just having fun by myself.
And then I got a call.
And it was, like, 2:00, 2:16 in the morning.
It was a friend telling me that,
"Sabion and Jacob have been shot."
I was like, "Oh, okay. Are they okay?"
And then he was like, "No, Shontel, they're dead."
And then...
I didn't cry. It was more of a...
Like a dry scream. Like, it was just like,
I don't know how to describe it.
And then he said, "Y'all need to come to the house now."
I heard her running down the stairs.
I mean, she was running hard.
Screaming, and everything else,
and that's why I was like, "What is going on?"
And then she runs in my room and tells me,
"Sabion's been shot."
I said, "Well, maybe they're okay. Maybe they're okay.
We gotta get to 'em, you know? Maybe they'll be okay."
She said, "No, no, they're dead."
So, we got dressed and got in the car and went to Mart.
That was the longest drive down that road ever.
And I just kept saying, "We gotta pray. We gotta pray. We gotta pray."
And she was screaming.
And finally we made it to where Riesel meets Mart.
And there was just red and blue lights everywhere.
So, that's really when it hit.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
When I saw the ambulances pull off empty,
that's when I knew that that was it.
[Detective Johnson] Everybody in the house was erratic.
Jacob's mom was on the floor with him, crying.
Dad was wanting something to be done,
yelling and screaming at everybody.
In a situation like this,
events can't happen fast enough to catch the shooter.
So, we need to make sure we keep building a good case
as we're processing everything.
[DA DeCluitt] The murder weapon was found at the scene.
It was a 9mm Glock with an extended magazine.
We found six spent shell casings,
and we were able to account for all the rounds
that were fired from those shell casings.
In interviewing the family that night,
nobody heard any of the shots that were fired in the house.
The dad said that Jacob and Sabion
played video games through all hours of the night, full volume.
And so they were so used to hearing gunshots.
But they slept through the noise.
[DA Calvert] In addition to the shell casings that were in the bedroom,
there also were numerous bloody footprints
of someone who was not wearing shoes,
going from the bodies,
through the kitchen area, and straight into the bedroom
of Anthony Medlock and his wife.
Who were asleep in their bed at the time.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
Any time you have a murder, there's gonna be
rumors going around about who did it, why they did it.
And this case was certainly no exception.
There were rumors that it was drug related,
that it was gang related.
The investigators in this case did a good job
of running all those facts down.
Jacob and Sabion definitely weren't in any gang.
From my understanding, the rumor was,
whoever was involved in doing it
was trying to get initiated into a gang.
And in order to get into the gang,
you had to kill two people.
We found out there was a whole group of boys
that came over to the house earlier that night.
[DA Calvert] All of these boys had grown up together from early childhood.
All of these boys were very close friends.
They referred to each other as brothers.
And they were very well known in Mart.
Jacob Ybarra was the defensive MVP
for the Mart Football Team.
Sabion Kubitza had a full scholarship to play football.
Zamar Kirven received a scholarship
to play Division 1 football at the University of Houston.
Shatydrick "Woola" Bailey received an opportunity to play college football.
And they had formed bonds on the football field
all throughout their lives,
and so it was hard for anyone to imagine
that one of them could harm,
let alone kill, one or more of the others.
But that's absolutely something that we had to
look at in this case, as we would in any murder case.
[DA DeCluitt] We found out that Zamar and some of the group
decided to go to some field party.
And they wanted Jacob to go, and Jacob said
that he didn't wanna go because he knew that
those parties were not always safe,
and he wanted to stay home.
And so they leave,
and they're FaceTiming each other.
And you see Jacob there, you see Sabion there
whenever they're FaceTiming their friends in Jacob's room.
And you also see Shatydrick "Woola" Bailey.
So we knew Woola stayed there too,
and could've been there when the shots were fired.
[DA Calvert] Woola Bailey was 20 years old.
Jacob and Woola had won
state championships together at Mart High School.
And so they were truly lifelong friends.
[Detective Johnson] We tried to explore the relationships
as much as we can.
I didn't know where Woola was.
We don't know for sure what happened when,
so we need to get Woola to the sheriff's office to interview him.
[Shontel] When I heard that they couldn't find Woola,
I questioned, like,
"Was there any, like, secret animosity?"
It was suspicious because nobody knows where he is.
I wanted to know why he left
after Sabion and Jacob had been killed.
The next few days were extremely overwhelming
because you're trying to process it all,
but you're also having to plan a funeral,
which is a lot when you've never
thought of a song to play for your kid's funeral.
You've never thought of anything.
I decided to do a balloon release for them.
So, we went to the football field
to honor them and their memories.
Blue was Jacob's favorite color,
and red was Sabion's favorite color.
So, the balloons was blue and red.
That football field was filled.
Everybody was there.
I was fixing to graduate high school in about two weeks.
And so I attached my graduation invitation
to the balloon and I let it go,
so they could be invited to my graduation.
[Detective Johnson] While we were trying to find Woola,
we start canvassing the neighborhood.
And we find a woman who had a video camera.
She was about three houses down the other side of the street.
In reviewing the video camera,
we found at about 1:16,
you actually see somebody's car pass.
It stops.
And then, somebody gets out.
You hear them take off.
And then, you hear the commotion,
when the person who was dropped off, hit the house,
really starts banging on Jacob's door, demanding to be let in.
[indistinct dialogue]
[Detective Johnson] The man sounded very agitated.
Not long after, you hear the first six gunshots,
fired in quick succession.
[six gunshots fired]
[Detective Johnson] It was a very good piece of evidence to find.
Because, now we actually have a time stamp,
of the shots being fired.
[six gunshots fired]
As far as we know, Sabion and Jacob
and the third boy, Woola,
are inside the house when the six shots were fired.
And then, later on that night, we found Woola.
You have a seat right here. And you ma'am, you sit on the blue chair.
He was at his godmother's house.
And we were bringing him to the sheriff's office here, to interview him.
And he said he wasn't there when all this happened.
[DA Calvert] He said he chose to walk to the other end of town to get some snacks.
It was about a 15 or 20 minute walk.
And then, when he got close to the house, these murders occurred.
[six gunshots fired]
[Detective Johnson] In reviewing the video camera,
we're able to confirm some of Woola's testimony.
Because the house looks down the nearest side street.
And we see a cellphone on the video image,
coming up that side street. And its position about where Woola said
he was when he heard the gunshots.
[DA DeCluitt] He's walking back up near Texas Avenue.
[six gunshots fired]
You can hear when the gunshots hit that he stops.
And then you see him continue on to the house.
He's near the house when those shots were fired.
Close enough to hear the shots.
But, he was not inside the house when that murder occurred.
[DA DeCluitt] But, we have an eyewitness who knows what happened that night.
Because, Woola goes in the house.
[Detective Johnson] When he got back into the house,
Woola said somebody else was there too.
[DA Calvert] Zamar Kirven, who had left the house earlier in the evening,
had got dropped back off at that house.
[Detective Johnson] Woola said it was very weird.
Zamar was not acting like himself.
He was acting kind of crazed.
He was behaving erratically.
And appeared to have blood on him.
Woola saw that Zamar had bloody socks on.
And was walking bloody footprints throughout the house.
[Detective Johnson] Woola was scared to death.
[Detective Johnson] We don't know where Zamar went.
We don't have any video of Zamar leaving the house.
But we have the bloody footprints leaving from dad's room,
through the kitchen, out the side door,
and up the driveway.
[siren wailing]
[Detective Johnson] There was a team led by the chief of police of Mart,
that went to Zamar's dad house.
Because the chief felt that that's where Zamar went.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
The Mart police chief who had known Zamar Kirven
his entire life also knew he was a star football player.
And so warned the other officers
and had them form a perimeter around the house.
Because to put it in his words,
this man can run like a gazelle.
[indistinct chatter over police radio]
The chief of police was able to get Zamar to surrender peacefully.
He was arrested for the murder of his friends, Sabion and Jacob.
[Anthony] I guess I was still totally, like in shock, like,
why? Why would you kill somebody that you...
raise around and close to?
Z was part of the family.
So, we treat him the same way we treated all the rest of our kids.
So, it didn't feel right.
I did think it was a mistake when they said, that Zamar did it.
We were all family.
[Shontel] Zamar was in jail.
And then, there are people posting that...
that Zamar was gonna get free.
People were saying like...
wait till the truth comes out.
[commentator] And here's a throw to the end zone.
Zamar Kirven with the catch. Touchdown, Mart High.
Zamar Kirven was a favorite son of Mart.
And so, people were very surprised that he was present
in the house at the time these murders occurred.
There was very high hopes in that community,
that he would go on to a successful collegiate football career.
And then, hopefully, to a professional football career.
And so, he was exceptionally athletically gifted.
[Anthony] We call him Z Baby.
Z was part of the family. I considered Z as a son.
Zamar was good.
He was strong. He was powerful.
If he got in your way, he pretty much gonna run you over.
He looked like a linebacker. If you were to build one, that's the guy.
That's what it was gonna look like.
Zamar had been on the football team at the University of Houston.
He was a great athlete.
One of the best ones that Mart High had ever seen.
[DA Calvert] Zamar was going to go to the NFL.
And that was going to change the fortunes of the Kirven family.
And then, looks like Zamar, maybe he killed them both.
That's just... unbelievable.
[DA DeCluitt] At the time, Zamar Kirven was living with Mr. Medlock.
But that doesn't explain a way
why he had the blood on his running pants and on his shirt.
[Detective Johnson] When I arrived at the Mart police station,
Zamar was kept and his socks were saturated with blood.
And, there was a little bit of blood splatter on his pants.
Please have a seat right here.
[Detective Johnson] And then, we interviewed Zamar.
He talks about a events kind of leading up, where they were and all.
But he stopped short of, the episode where
the gun was fired, where anybody was killed, anything like that.
The chief in Mart knew Zamar.
He said that he was not acting like himself.
He was kind of disconnected,
like, he could have been scared, 'cause he was covering for somebody.
[officer] You want to have your lawyer?
[Detective Johnson] So, we don't know for sure what happened.
And the only person who would know isn't talking.
Zamar Kirven looked like he was guilty of these murders.
But, when we were working on this case,
we received a phone call,
that took what otherwise would have been a very simple murder case
and turned it into something
that could turn into a fight about who did it, in a courtroom.
[Detective Johnson] Kevin Kirven who was actually a cousin of Zamar,
was at our jail, because he got in a shootout with Waco PD.
Kevin has a long history of criminal offenses.
During the course of Waco PD's interview,
they talk about the murder of Sabion and Jacob.
And, he admitted to being in Mart that night.
He said he also engaged in a violent confrontation inside the house.
[DA DeCluitt] Kevin Kirven is a gang member.
And also grew up in Mart, Texas.
You have to take that seriously.
You also have to take seriously that he is a bad guy.
I went to the jail with another detective,
uh, where Kevin was being held to interview Kevin.
You have the right to remain silent, and not make any statement at all.
Any statement you make may be used against you in trial.
Just write there for me.
Kevin Kirven said one of the two victims,
Sabion, had made some type
of sexual advance towards Zamar.
And Zamar Kirven was upset by that.
And Kevin Kirven claimed that Zamar
told Kevin that he wanted kill Sabion.
Kevin said, "No. You don't need to get yourself in trouble.
I'll take care of it."
Kevin said that he then went over to the house,
went into that bedroom and he shot those two boys in the head and left.
We do know Kevin was present at the night of the murder.
There's a motel directly across Texas Avenue,
from Anthony Medlock's house.
Kevin Kirven was seen by the Mart police chief,
who saw him at that motel,
the morning following the murders of Jacob and Sabion.
So, Kevin Kirven was definitely in the area
at the time these murders occurred.
Zamar Kirven would not provide any substantive information
about Kevin Kirven's confession.
But he did have the opportunity
to send text messages
through tablets that inmates have access to.
And so, we had those texts.
And then we knew exactly what had happened inside that house.
During the investigation,
going forward, it's Zamar Kirven that's done it.
That's where all the evidence is leading.
And then here comes Kevin Kirven, his cousin,
saying, "I'm the one that did it.
I shot Sabion and I shot Jacob."
So then we had to go and uncover those rocks.
He claimed that no one else was in the house.
But we knew there were at least four other people in the house,
at the time of the murder.
[DA DeCluitt] The boys are both shot multiple times.
So saying that he only shot one shot on each of them,
we knew immediately was not true.
[Detective Johnson] Kevin is a bit of a gun-efficient auto.
And we asked him during the interview,
the brand of gun that he used, and we gave him a couple of options.
Beretta, Ruger, and Taurus.
Well, Kevin said that he was using a Taurus.
Well, it wasn't a Taurus. It was a Glock that was used.
Yes, we had the murder weapon, so we know exactly what gun.
All the bullets that were fired that night,
the shell casings and everything, match up to that Glock.
It couldn't have been any other gun.
Kevin's DNA is not on that Glock.
[DA Calvert] All of his details, in terms of specifics,
just did not match up with what the physical evidence showed at the scene.
[DA DeCluitt] All the evidence was pointing at Zamar Kirven.
He was there that night.
We had the bloody footprints.
We had him running from the scene.
We had everything going.
[Detective Johnson] We believe Kevin was trying to take credit for Zamar,
to get Zamar out of jail.
Zamar, I think, was kind of the person
who was meant to be the success story of the family.
[DA DeCluitt] Kevin really thought
Zamar could get back into college football,
and may be make it to the NFL.
He was gonna be the person in the family that made it.
And took care of everybody.
And he said, he did not want Zamar to end up like him.
Even though people that are in jail
know that every text they send
or every phone call they make is probably gonna be looked at
by the district attorney's office or law enforcement,
sometimes they get lax and Zamar was saying,
that had he not been high that night,
this wouldn't have happened.
[Detective Johnson] In texting with his friends,
he admitted that he did shoot Sabion and Jacob.
Looking back on that night, people blaming on the drugs.
But I won't necessarily blame it on the drugs.
Everybody was so proud of him.
'Cause he worked so hard for that scholarship just for it to go to waste.
And then, right before everything happened,
Jacob and Sabion did get accepted to college.
And Zamar felt like he was getting left behind.
I felt like there was some type of jealousy in their relationship,
with all of 'em.
[DA DeCluitt] He'd gotten out of Mart.
He was one of the best athletes they'd ever had.
Zamar Kirven was on the football team at the University of Houston.
And he had his whole future ahead of him,
when he was arrested,
in another county for having a large amount of marijuana.
And, he was finally let go from the University of Houston football program.
[Chris] After he got kicked off the team at Houston,
he wanted to be this thug.
But that's not the direction Sabion and Jacob were going.
They were going to school. They were going to get a job.
They were tied together with that.
So, I think that's where the jealousy comes in with Zamar.
[DA Calvert] And so in Texas, there is capital murder
and regular murder.
Capital murder carries a sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Uh, for Zamar Kirven,
a plea bargain offer that with a sentence of life on regular murder,
Zamar Kirven would have been eligible for parole after 30 years.
Zamar Kirven did not take that offer.
He rejected it and elected to proceed to trial on his capital murder charge.
[DA DeCluitt] The jury looked at all the evidence,
and they saw that the only conclusion that could be made,
is that Zamar Kirven murdered two of his best friends.
And so, they found him guilty.
[Shannon] People think that you're gonna be happy and excited,
that they found him guilty.
But it's... it's not excitement.
It's not something we went out and celebrated.
I mean, he lost his whole life too.
There's nothing good about it.
With Z being in jail, then nobody win.
I forgave Z the same day.
I never forget what he did.
But I had to forgive him for me.
At my graduation, I had a chair for them.
And there was a picture of us.
Me, Sabion, and Jacob from my prom.
So, and then I took a picture with it, afterwards.
And it was good. 'Cause it was like, they were there.
Since they couldn't physically be there.
That night just changed everyone's lives.
I mean, all of the boys had bright futures ahead of 'em.
Um...
And that night, that one incident, just took everything from them.
All of the boys, and families, and friends had affected
more people than you could ever imagine.
[Shontel] I believe the community is come out of the grief.
I feel like it showed...
everybody that, you never know...
when somebody is gonna...
go.
I see a lot of people... hanging out.
And, a lot more pictures have been taken.
Like, you see a lot of...
people soaking and enjoying the moments.
Feel like I've noticed...
a lot more quality time being spent with people.
♪
Touchdown Lakeland Patriots!
Friday night lights brings you forward as a celebrity
and also could put a target on your back.
Did Coach Moss cross paths with someone at a football game
and they followed him home?
This is Texas. This is football and people are crazy.